Post: #26

Good historical arguments for a monarchical mixed system:

Britain, Napoleonic France, and Prussia. I would name more but those are the best three.

Though I would argue Napoleon was Europe's last chance.

Good arguments for Republicanism:

Venice

Only one.

Compare the scale and who had the more lasting impact.

Pure Republics end up as Plutocracies beholden to economical interests alone. Also providing little to no actual change due to the false belief in choice. I certainly don't know who counts the votes or if your vote is even counted. Can any of you prove it?


With a tyrant atleast the pitch fork is easy to point.

That's my two cents and I'll let other people do more research into the topic. This a topic hard to get into considering the 10+ generations long fetishization of modernity and the "Enlightenment".

Post: #27

Oh and you Protestants especially of the American variety aren't helping.

Protestantism was the original cancer starting with Calvin.

Post: #28

“Hierarchies are celestial. In hell all are equal.”
― Nicolás Gómez Dávila *

Some great insights here. Growing up I completely bought into democracy and my younger self would view anyone who thought otherwise as being some kind of 'nut'. Well, I've eventually become a 'nut' as like others I can only see democracy going the same way wherever it's tried. Because I was young once, I can see how easily (and inexorably) the young will always gravitate towards it.

At least with Monarchy and feudalism, if you're unlucky enough to live under a bad King, you only have to get rid of one guy. This is what happened all the time. You can't do the same with a government or the swamp dwellers that prop it up.

I just don't think we should even try and pursue something as nebulous as 'Equality' in the first place. Such a thing doesn't exist in nature. The Declaration of Independence (for example) was forced to hold 'these truths to be self-evident' only because they couldn't find a single real-life, natural or historical example to cite. Those truths were so 'self-evident' that they couldn't even prove it.

'Fairness' on the other hand, by that I mean 'fairness within the law'. Well, that's achievable and a great incentive for any citizen to want to contribute to his particular society. Sympathy, Compassion and Charity? We need these qualities to flow down from the top, but without religion nowadays to do the heavy lifting, that's tricky to propagate. If we choose not to re-vitalise religion, we need to replace it with something useful.

I like Heinlein's ideas about earning voting rights very much. I also like the idea I've seen on other threads of only having one vote per family unit (the father casting it). Apologies to whoever mentioned it recently, I've forgotten the thread now.

Good to see Talebs ideas mentioned earlier. With democracies eventually leading to a one-world government, all 7.6 billion of us will find ourselves in an extremely 'anti-fragile' place indeed.


* Check out Davila's other awesome aphorisms on this site I've found when looking for the author;

https://don-colacho.blogspot.com/

e.g.

#2,981
The voter does not even vote for what he wants; he only votes for what he thinks he wants.

#2,973
In the modern state there now exist only two parties: citizens and bureaucracy.

#2,728
Among those elected by popular suffrage only the imbeciles are respectable, because the intelligent man had to lie in order to be elected.

and this one particularly tickled me;

#2,900
Monarchs, in almost every dynasty, have been so mediocre that they look like presidents.

Post: #29

^^
Sorry, but I just had to add one more, this is a beauty;

#2,538
Political parties, in democracies, have the function of enlisting citizens so that the political class can direct them as it pleases.

Post: #30

(04-18-2018 07:37 AM)infowarrior1 Wrote:  Tell me your thoughts on the video. Is Monarchy as is claimed in the video the key to lower time preference in societies?
And democracy necessarily the incentive to high time preference?

This is an amazingly deep question and a lot of the comments so far are very good.

We should view each country in terms of factions. In order for a person to gain power they must have the support of a group of people. That group of people must benefit from the ruler. Therefore it's sometimes more important to look at the faction behind the system of government than the government itself.

My point is that if you look around the world... Monarchy won't benefit Africa or S.America any better than Democracy. The reason is because the factions behind any government are comprised of people who are too self interested and too short sighted.

The US system is designed as a power sharing system, so that different factions can each have their ideas and needs addressed. The US has an incredible amount of factions that are forced to work together to achieve some goals.

Most western democracies could be fixed overnight by removing the vote for women. The liberal factions are terrified of nationalism... because it serves as a unifying force that eradicates identity politics.

Post: #31

(07-18-2018 08:32 AM)Richard Turpin Wrote:  At least with Monarchy and feudalism, if you're unlucky enough to live under a bad King, you only have to get rid of one guy. This is what happened all the time. You can't do the same with a government or the swamp dwellers that prop it up.

If the King is bad then you must have a strong enough faction to remove him from power. There will always be those who will support a bad king simply because it personally benefits them.

Look at China. They have had a power sharing agreement within the ruling elite for a long time. Now Xi Jinping has consolidated power and will make himself the new Emperor. Who could dislodge him? The only threat would be their own military, so as long as a king takes care of his professional soldiers he can be as bad as he wants for the common people. Kings only have to answer to their own supporters and everyone else gets fucked.

Also... I want to point out that Liberals have believed for generations that if they get a group of smart people in charge of government that those smart people will create a utopia. You can see this all the way back to JFK's surrounding himself with young Ivy League grads. This was especially apparent under Obama. The problem that quickly arrises is that smart technocrats and liberals in general favor ideas that are new and untested over older ideas that are proven to work. Therefore they run government programs that often fail or have extremely bad impacts.

Post: #32

Yeah I dunno, Czar Nicholas 2, Kaizer Wilhem off ww1, king George 3, king Louie the 16th, Nero amongst other monarchs did some irreversible damage. Dont see a lot of long term thinking on their part.

At least you can get rid of the President Carters and George Bushs after 8 years. And politicians have to earn their stripes to get to the top.

Post: #33

(07-22-2018 10:21 AM)Pride male Wrote:  Yeah I dunno, Czar Nicholas 2, Kaizer Wilhem off ww1, king George 3, king Louie the 16th, Nero amongst other monarchs did some irreversible damage. Dont see a lot of long term thinking on their part.

At least you can get rid of the President Carters and George Bushs after 8 years. And politicians have to earn their stripes to get to the top.

Care to tell me how Kaizer Wilhelm did irreversible damage? I think that's taking the easy way out. Every single European power was itching for a war before the First World War kicked off. There was nothing that the German Kaizer could've done to avoid it. What I mean by that is that even if Kaizer Wilhelm had made a rational decision after the assassination of Ferdinand in the Balkans, there would've been some other event that would've kicked it off down the road.

I don't think Kaizer Wilhelm did irreversible damage. I think the allies did irreversible damage with The Treaty of Versailles, which was the single worst treaty of the turn of the century.

I'm not sure how you don't see a lot of long term thinking on Kaizer Wilehlm's part. He was building up the German navy to rival that of the British. He was making Germany into a powerhouse. He did have long term thinking, he just lost the war that all the big European powers were itching for.

Post: #34

I still find the idea of grovelling before a certain family because their blood is allegedly more special than everybody else to be silly.

Post: #35

(07-28-2018 05:25 AM)Pride male Wrote:  I still find the idea of grovelling before a certain family because their blood is allegedly more special than everybody else to be silly.

Maybe you do (and so do I), but most members of society need some kind of social mythology to keep them functioning. Members of this forum are not representative of the general population.

In democratic societies like the USA, that takes the form of civic religion, where people venerate past presidents, the Constitution, the flag, the wars that were won, etc.

Post: #36

(07-28-2018 09:12 AM)BlueMark Wrote:  

(07-28-2018 05:25 AM)Pride male Wrote:  I still find the idea of grovelling before a certain family because their blood is allegedly more special than everybody else to be silly.

Maybe you do (and so do I), but most members of society need some kind of social mythology to keep them functioning. Members of this forum are not representative of the general population.

In democratic societies like the USA, that takes the form of civic religion, where people venerate past presidents, the Constitution, the flag, the wars that were won, etc.

I think that venerating Constitution that holds unique rights and freedoms and past presidents that did great job in securing those freedoms, ending slavery and winning world wars makes much more sense then obsessing about queens new hat and discussing the fashions of the sluts that marry into English Royal family.

American civic religion is masculine and virtuous. British civic religion has become matriarchal and slutty. In my opinion it started to go downhill for the Brits from Henry VIII, who founded Anglicanism based on his petty reason of desire to divorce and remarry interdependently of Pope's blessing. Today the national English religion is the most cucked Christian denomination full of female and gay priests. And it's origins are obviously fake. It's such a shame.

Another factor is that all American presidents so far have been men (Bless Trump's victory). For English the Queens Victoria and Elizabeth rule extremely long and the image of a Queen is stronger then the image of a King for the Brits. I suspect this long tradition of matriarchy has it's share of blame for the high levels of feminism in anglosphere.

Post: #37

(07-28-2018 05:25 AM)Pride male Wrote:  I still find the idea of grovelling before a certain family because their blood is allegedly more special than everybody else to be silly.

So instead we now grovel before our corporate masters. Meet your new boss.

Post: #38

^Im not that smart to understand finance, but I heard Milton Friedman talk about the difference between big government and big finance.

Big companies and corporations cant take your money without your consent, big government or monarchies can.

Post: #39

Well if Milton Friedman said it then it must be true.